Trucker, I believe you're correct, although that was only regarding international flights. (I THINK)

For instance, if they thought (for whatever reason they wished to make up) that a passenger was a drug currier, they could DETAIN him/her, and force them to (eventually) defecate into special toilet that they could rifle through and look for balloons full of heroin that the passenger may have swallowed.

There was a case some years ago where the only suspicion of the guy was A: He had paid cash at the airport for his ticket, and B: He seemed to be overly anxious about his briefcase. (Just like in the movie Airport with Dean Martin and Burt Lancaster).

The authorities strip-searched him and found a fairly large sum of cash in the briefcase, which was confiscated pending an investigation.

After an extensive investigation it was found that the guy was some rarities dealer who always dealt in cash. It still took him an expensive attorney and a Federal court hearing to get his cash back despite the investigator's findings.

This was just one of several dozen abusive cases at the hands of airport security that I read about well before TSA. In another case at Metro Airport, police suspected a guy who flew into Metro from Atlanta, who along with his entire family was detained and strip-searched upon arrival in Detroit. The stuff was eventually found, inside a couple of his kids. There was criminal activity and legitimate suspicion involved, but does that justify strip-searching an entire family arriving on a domestic commercial flight in the 1970s?

I have already seen a comedic proposal for all of us to fly commercially in the nude!!!

I hate flying too, what the terrorists didn't accomplist the feds will do for them. Makes you wonder where the real threat lies. I am a truck driver and I work for Roadway Express. I run a bid to the port of Long Beach Ca. two weeks ago I had to go down to downtown L.B. to get my finger prints scan and my picture taken so they can do a security check to make sure i'm not a threat to our national security. Also the last time I renew my license I had to have a background check to keep my haz-mat endorsement. When is enought -enought.

_________________________
To own one's shadow is the highest moral act of a human.-Robert Johnson-

"IT ought never be forgotten that the past is the parent of the future" John C. Calhoun

Mel. The airlines are complicit in their own demise, as far as never having return customers, such as me, who value freedom and don't want it squandered away for the sake of (promised) security.

They are private entities who COULD lobby congress and tell them to back off with their police state tactics, but they don't, they think that searching people and asking them for their "papers" is just fine. Hence, I have no pity for them.

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